News Segment

Persistent rumors that Van Halen will audition new singers on the upcoming season of CBS reality series “Rock Star” are untrue, according to the network.

“All it is is a rumor, we deny it,” a CBS Entertainment spokesperson tells Billboard.com. “We don’t even have [an act] firmly established yet, though, hopefully we will shortly.”

A spokesperson for Van Halen referred Billboard.com to a previously published report in which the band’s involvement with the show was vehemently denied.

Speculation of the “Rock Star”/Van Halen pairing has been running wild since the fall when, in an interview, the series’ producer Mark Burnett (“Survivor”) used the group as an example, along with Queen, as an act appropriate for the show’s mission of filling vacancies.

The story got new legs during this morning’s (Feb. 14) broadcast of the syndicated David Lee Roth radio show as the former Van Halen frontman declared, “They really are gonna do it, I think. It’s the ‘Rock Star’ open call schedule. They just handed me the schedule… they won’t say who it’s for, but I think it’s for Van Halen.”

“Rock Star,” which is co-hosted by former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, has indeed announced its audition schedule. Tryouts will be conducted throughout North America for about a month, starting March 1 in Austin. An announcement about the featured artist is forthcoming, according to the CBS spokesperson. The network plans to air the program’s second season this summer.

The first season bowed last year as “Rock Star: INXS.” The Australian band ultimately crowned J.D. Fortune as its new lead singer, recorded an album and is on the road in North America, playing Reading, Pa., tomorrow night.

Since Roth exited the band in 1985, hard rock crew Van Halen has been helmed by Sammy Hagar, who left the band in 1996, and former Extreme singer Gary Cherone. Attempts to regroup with Roth failed, but a reunion with Hagar resulted in a tour in 2004 and new songs on a best-of collection.